Here’s my quick spin on the first Kerry-Bush debate: Kerry won.
In fact, I think Bush came across as surprisingly petulant. (Not that I’m surprised by his petulance, just that he’d allow himself to come across that way.)
I’ll leave more detailed analysis to others, but I did have one curious little observation. Note the following line from Bush’s closing statement:
In the next four years, we will continue to strengthen our homeland defenses, we will strengthen our intelligence gathering services, we will reform our military – military will be an all-volunteer army.
Notice the little stumble there as he tried to emphasize “all-volunteer”?
This tells me two things. 1) The Bush team knows that if the the public believes we’re headed for a military draft, he will lose this election, and 2) … we’re headed for a military draft.
Recruitment is down. More importantly, quality recruitment is down. And yet there seems no end in sight for our military commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If I were 18, I’d be awfully anxious.
(Okay… I was awfully anxious as an 18-year-old, but you get the point.)
I wonder if Bush’s vision of an “all volunteer army” is akin the all-volunteer massacre we see with Iraq’s current scenario.
And someone correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the issue that we don’t have enough “volunteers” for the military now?? Last time I spoke with a recruiter, joining any of the armed services was voluntary, with a reward added for good measure.
Nothing like lowering the entrance standards to align with the “dumbing down” of America
David, when you say “2) … were headed for a military draft” I think you probably need to include an apostrophe in “were”.
I agree with your analysis on the debate. Kerry did well.
Andrew, I don’t bother using my spell-checker anymore, now that I know you’re reading my blog daily. (thanks)